


Of Bread and Cheese

by RosiePaw



Series: On the Simplest Aspects of Life [1]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosiePaw/pseuds/RosiePaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve Rogers attempts to figure out 21st century food</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Bread and Cheese

It often seems to Steve that the simplest of aspects of life are the ones that have changed the most. Food, for example. It isn’t just that he’s never heard of shawarma or pad thai before, let alone eaten them on a regular basis. Heck, even in the forties his culinary knowledge had been nothing to brag about – the fondue misunderstanding demonstrated _that_.

No, what amazes – and baffles and even kind of saddens – Steve is that people in the 21st century have no idea what goes into the food they eat or how it’s prepared and moreover, they don’t really care. His teammates have introduced him to all sorts of new flavours ("Jalapeño jelly beans?" "Trust me, they’re good, try them") but can almost never supply more detailed information. Okay, except for Clint, and he knows better to believe everything Clint says. Especially when Clint claims they’re eating recycled roadkill. ("The tenderness of the meat depends on the weight of the vehicle that ran it over. What? Why are you looking at me like that?")

It’s pure frustration that first drives Steve to cookbooks. To his own surprise, however, he soon finds himself browsing through them with genuine interest rather than simply trying to figure out what he’s eaten the night before. Cookbooks, he realizes, provide all sorts of information on cultural changes over the past seventy years. Discovering recipes for dishes his mother had made which list ingredients she never could have afforded is both hilarious and nostalgic.

Unfortunately, the cookbooks hold no clues as to another aspect of life whose 21st century version baffles Steve: courting. Not that he has a lot of – well, _any_ , really – experience with the forties version. But back then he’d at least had a rough idea of what the rules were and how things were supposed to go. Now? As far as he can tell from the sidelines, the rules constantly change depending on a myriad of factors, most of which he doesn’t even know how to detect – and at least one of which is the relative genders of the participants.

Then there’s the question of what’s permissible between members of the same team. Clint and Natasha, for example. Or maybe Clint and Phil? Clint and Natasha and Phil? Although sometimes Steve gets the impression that Natasha has something going on with Pepper – and speaking of Pepper, hadn’t she and Tony gotten involved while they were both still working for Stark Industries? Although maybe that’s exactly why it didn’t work out and in any case, Tony probably isn’t the best example to follow when it comes to rules, unwritten or otherwise. Tony is...

Well, that’s it, right there. Tony is Tony.

And he’s driving Steve crazy.

***

When Steve first trips over the Swiss fondue recipe, his first thought is, Howard was right! Fondue _is_ indeed pretty much just bread and cheese. Okay, the cheese has to be a special kind, but Steve’s seen Emmenthaler and Gruyere for sale in delis. And there are a few more ingredients, but nothing too exotic. Cornstarch, garlic, lemon juice, mustard, nutmeg... dry white wine, shouldn’t be a problem, Tony must have all kinds of wine in stock... Kirsch.

"Uh, JARVIS?"

"Yes, Captain Rogers."

"Do we have any kirsch? It’s a kind of cherry brandy."

"I’m aware of that, Captain Rogers. Kirsch is not one of Sir’s preferred beverages, but we do have two and half bottles in stock."

"Oh. The fondue recipe only calls for a tablespoon, but if he doesn’t like it..."

"Forgive me, Captain Rogers, I should clarify. Sir almost never drinks kirsch ‘straight up,’ but he does not mind it in food. I would advise including it."

"Thank you, JARVIS."

"My pleasure, Captain Rogers."

Steve continues to read. Preparation seems fairly straight-forward, although keeping the cheese from balling up or getting stringy can apparently be a bit of a challenge. The fondue needs to be served in a...

"JARVIS?"

"Captain Rogers."

"Do we have a fondue pot?"

JARVIS makes a noise suspiciously like a sigh. "Alas, not anymore, Captain Rogers. Sir incorporated it into one of his projects thirteen years, seven months and ten days ago. The project was not successful and the components were vaporized in the resulting explosion. I can, however, recommend sources from which to obtain a fondue pot."

Okay, thinks Steve, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

***

Then again, this _is_ the 21st century.

***

Steve’s just starting to get the tray balanced on one hand so he’d have the other free to knock when the door to Tony’s workshop slides open anyway. He figures this is JARVIS’ doing, as Tony’s doing something with a circuit board on the other side of the room, surrounded by holograms and oblivious to Steve’s presence.

Only when the volume of the pounding music drops to a dull roar does Tony look up.

"Oh, hey, Cap, what brings you down here?"

"Well, for one thing, you haven’t eaten in the past twelve hours."

"Not true! I ate breakfast!"

"You ate one of Thor’s Poptarts..."

"For breakfast."

"Twelve hours ago."

Tony frowns. "JARVIS, what time..."

"It is currently 8:17 PM, Eastern daylight time, sir. Captain Rogers is correct."

"Captain Rogers is confusing the roles of team leader and mother hen," snaps Tony.

"Captain Rogers brought you food," Steve points out mildly.

Tony seems to notice the tray for the first time. True to form, his attention goes straight to the large steaming mugs. "You brought me coffee!"

"With food." Steve carries the tray over to a relatively clear spot on a workbench. "Am I safe to set this down here?"

"Yeah, sure." Tony goes to grab one of the mugs. When Steve insists on handing him a plate along with the mug, he grimaces but complies. Then he frowns at what’s _on_ the plate.

"What is this?"

"It’s a grilled cheese sandwich."

"It doesn’t have a top."

"They didn’t have tops when my mother used to make them."

"Well, topless works for women. Actually, topless works for just about everyone." Tony picks up half of his sandwich, takes a bite, chews and swallows. "Sandwiches included. No, really, this is good. Uh, why?"

Steve picks up half of his own sandwich and raises an eyebrow. "You’re welcome."

"Okay, fine, _thank you_. Now: why?" 

"Have you ever been inside a kitchen supply store?"

Tony shrugs. "I waited outside one once for two hours while Pepper was inside."

"Two _hours_?" Steve can’t imagine Tony standing in front of a store for two _minutes_. "I’d have thought you would've just bought the entire store and had the contents shipped home for Pepper instead."

"Nah, I’d already tried that once with another store. Pepper, ah, wasn’t pleased. Anyway, I was sitting in the limo and I’d brought a tablet so that I could get some work done. But it wasn’t easy. Happy almost ran out of change for the parking meter." 

"I tried to buy a fondue pot," Steve confesses.

Tony’s eyes widen. "You didn’t. You _did_. Why didn’t you just tell JARVIS to pick out the best one available and buy it online?"

"Oh. I could have done that?"

" _Of course_ you could have... JARVIS!"

"By the time I realized that Captain Rogers needed assistance in this regard, sir, he had already become determined on another course of action."

"What’s that supposed to mean?" Tony demands.

Steve swallows a mouthful of sandwich and takes a deep breath. "It means I’m not a fondue kind of guy. When it comes to bread and cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches are what I know how to do. So that’s what I did."

Tony picks up the other half of his own sandwich and takes a bite, looking thoughtful as he chews and then swallows. "Peggy Carter used to drop by to see Howard sometimes when I was a kid, usually just after he’d got back from one of his Cap-hunting trips. I used to eavesdrop."

Steve snorts. "Of course you did. I bet you had a crush on Peggy."

Tony blinks, then shrugs. "A crush, yeah. I definitely had a crush. Anyway, I was listening when he told her the fondue story. They were both laughing and then she was crying but she was still laughing. It was... pretty weird."

"You were a kid," Steve says softly. A kid with too little experience of loving or being loved, he thinks.

"The thing is, Howard was wrong."

"What do you mean?"

Tony lowers his head slightly, then looks up at Steve through his eyelashes. The tip of his tongue darts out to catch a drop of melted cheese trying to escape from his sandwich. Mission accomplished, that agile pink tongue _licks_ along the end of the sandwich, capturing more cheese and then vanishing back into Tony’s mouth.

Tony’s mouth. Steve can’t look away from Tony’s mouth. He’s vaguely aware that he’s stopped breathing, but it doesn’t really matter as Tony begins to nibble at the corner of his sandwich with precise, delicate bites. Gradually a shape emerges, a long, narrow peninsula of sandwich jutting upwards from the rest.

Tony licks up the side of the peninsula and swirls that pink, pink tongue around the tip. Then he looks Steve straight in the eyes.

"Fondue may be just bread and cheese, Cap. But bread and cheese isn’t always just bread and cheese. It depends."

"On?" croaks Steve.

Tony smiles, sweet and wicked. "On the company, of course."

**Author's Note:**

> Why are Steve's sandwiches topless? When I first got the idea for this story, I thought I'd better check and make sure that grilled cheese sandwiches existed in the '40s. It turns out that they first appeared in the '20s, but up until the '60s were usually open-faced. See <http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodsandwiches.html#grilledcheese>


End file.
